TAIPEI, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Computex Taipei 2014 Summit Forum, organized by the Bureau of
Foreign Trade and run by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council
(TAITRA), was held in tandem with the 2014 edition of the
internationally-watched ICT (Information and Communications Technology)
event, the annual Computex Taipei expo. The Summit Forum was attended by
industry luminaries such as Stan Shih, Acer Chairman; Tsai Ming-kai,
Mediatek Chairman; Simon Segars, CEO of ARM Holdings and Shane Owenby,
Amazon Web Services’ APAC Managing Director. The four leaders were
invited to share their insights on the Internet of Things (IoT) and
cloud services along with the theme of “Integrating Hardware and
Software for Smart Internet of Things”, giving event attendees from all
over the world a window to see the cutting-edge development in the ICT
world from a global perspective.

In his speech, Huang Wen-jung, TAITRA Secretary-General noted that the
many disruptive advances brought about by mobile computing and cloud
technologies over the last few years have pushed the global ICT into a
brand new phase, with even international research firm McKinsey and the
US President Barack Obama stating that as the foundation of the
so-called “Internet of Things”, mobile computing and cloud technologies
are set to change humankind’s lifestyles in a radical fashion.

At the event, Stan Shih spoke about how Acer had leveraged its hardware
and software service experience to accelerate its “Build Your Own Cloud”
(BYOC) service, in order to establish Acer as a mature player that
supplies “Hardware + Software + Services”. He also stated Acer’s
intentions to partner its suppliers and distributors to create a new
value-added industry chain. Shih also invited Tsai Ming-kai of Mediatek
on-stage for a photograph, expressing his confidence that future tie-ups
between the two companies will create a better IoT experience for
consumers.

Tsai underscored the crucial role Taiwan has played in the development
of the global ICT scene over the last three decades with its strong
competitive edge in areas such as hardware manufacturing, product
development and services. As the world moves from Cloud 1.0 to Cloud
2.0, Taiwan players must work together to maintain the virtuous cycle of
Moore’s Law and technological advances in the semiconductor industry.

Simon Segars spoke at length about the importance of innovation.
Beginning with the century-old maker of the iconic Jelly Bean, he spoke
about how innovation was the key to winning consumers in areas as
diverse as the automobile and electronic industries. Taking remote
monitoring on the dog at home as an example, Segar also discussed
various IoT applications and how they can be commercialized.

According to Shane Owenby, the key to the spectacular success of Amazon
Web Services (AWS) achieved in mere five years is “scale”. Thanks to
scale, AWS was able to provide a tremendous amount of capacity to
consumers at affordable prices. In addition, Owenby also spoke about how
AWS is able to provide individuals, corporations, governments, schools,
etc., with highly customized cloud services solutions.

At the Summit Forum, Simon Chang, Minister of Science and Technology,
explored opportunities for Taiwan together with the four speakers. In
the opinion of Shih, with regard to the emergence of the IoT, large
corporations should establish platforms for young Taiwanese to develop
and show off their skills; on the other hand, Tsai emphasized the need
for players along Taiwan’s product chains to think deeply about how they
can enhance their competitiveness through various kinds of
consolidation. Segars suggested that Taiwan should direct the
semiconductor talents to the IoT field. In fact, this was one of the
reasons RAM chose to set up its CPU design center in Taiwan, while
Owenby encouraged Taiwan to further nurture its innovation capacity in
order to remain competitive on the world stage.

The four spoke for nearly five hours at the event. Not only did they
sketch an informative picture of how human life may look like in five to
ten years’ time, they also provided tantalizing glimpses at how the
global ICT industry may harness cloud technologies in their business
strategies. Surely, the Computex Taipei 2014 Summit Forum was one of the
most forward-looking tech events this year.

The original source-language text of this announcement is the official,
authoritative version. Translations are provided as an accommodation
only, and should be cross-referenced with the source-language text,
which is the only version of the text intended to have legal effect.